The Mongoliad: Book Three

spirit of our ancestors. Our success in this hunt will ensure the prosperity and longevity of the empire.” Another cheer interrupted him, and he swayed slightly as if buffeted by the fervor of those gathered. “Clan Darkhat has shown us this pleasant valley,” Ogedei continued, “and this will be our camp for the duration of our stay. By the pleasure of the Blue Wolf, let us not stay long!”

The audience erupted into noise once more, and Ogedei’s final words were lost in the cacophony of voices. The Khagan threw up his arms, exulting in the adoration of his subjects, and then he turned and disappeared into his ger.

“There will be a feast tonight,” Gansukh whispered, his mouth close to her ear. “That is when the hunt begins.”

Which hunt? Lian thought, a shiver running along her arms.

Unlike the intricate and complicated preparations necessary to organize the caravan, setting up camp and preparing for a feast were activities that the host of servants, attendants, tradesmen, and guards knew by heart. Oddly enough, these few hours were some of the only unstructured time Master Chucai had. Typically, he would withdraw to his ger and spend a few hours in delightful solitude, but tonight, as the camp buzzed with preparations for an immense feast to celebrate the Khagan’s hunt in the morning, he sought out two men: Alchiq, the old drunk, and Ghaltai, the leader of the Darkhat.

He found Alchiq near the wagons carrying the prisoners from the West. The gray-haired veteran was assisting with the sparse meals for the caged fighters, and when he noticed Chucai watching, he handed off his bucket of slop and rice to the caravan master.

“Good evening, Master Chucai,” he said, offering a short bow. “May I be of assistance?”

“How is it that a one-time companion of the Khagan-a man who commanded at least a jaghun in his time-is now serving slop to foreign prisoners?” Chucai asked with some curiosity. The idea of Munokhoi serving in this stead floating across his mind, and he quickly dismissed such a possibility as unlikely.

“After you exiled me, I drank a great deal,” Alchiq said. “I rode and I drank; I didn’t care where I went, just as long as I could refill my skin of arkhi.” He gestured at the row of cages behind him. “Serving men like this was all I was suited for.”

“And yet, earlier today, you wanted to serve your Khagan again.”

“I’ve never stopped wanting to serve,” Alchiq corrected him. “But I was a drunk. I stood by the Khagan and gave him an excuse to drink. We had conquered the world. What did it matter what we did next?”

Chucai said nothing; the man clearly had a speech he had been waiting a long time to deliver. Better to let him get it out.

“But it did matter, didn’t it?” Alchiq said. “That was why you banished me and the others. Why you kept reminding the Khagan of what his father had accomplished.” Alchiq shook his head. “We all hated you; we thought you were the poison that would destroy the empire.” He spat in the dirt.

“Why did you come back?” Chucai asked.

“I was with Batu Khan as he conquered lands in the Khagan’s name,” Alchiq said. I was there when he stormed Kiev, and I rode with his men when they tried to take the white citadel at the top of the hill.” Alchiq lifted his long hair off his neck and showed Chucai the ravaged line of scar tissue that ran down his neck and disappeared into his robe. The flesh was bubbled and ragged as if the skin had been liquefied and then allowed to cool.

“We tried for two weeks to take the citadel,” Alchiq continued, “and would have continued to throw ourselves against its walls until every last one of us were dead if Batu had had his way. It was General Subutai who pulled him away from the siege. There were only a handful of warriors in the keep, the general argued, and there were other lands to conquer. Beating down those walls was not worth the effort, not when there were richer prizes to be won more easily. Batu relented, but he left some of us behind. To wait for the day when those gates opened and we could finish them off.”

Alchiq stared at the cage that held the red-haired giant. “I waited a long time,” he continued, his voice more thoughtful. “I commanded more than a jaghun, Master Chucai, but, over time, more and more of them wandered off, chasing after Batu’s army. My men and I ranged far from Kiev, policing these lands as subject to the Khagan’s rule, exacting tribute as we saw fit. But we always came back to Kiev. We always came back to see if those gates had opened. But they never did. Not for us.”

“Why come back here?” Chucai asked again. “Shouldn’t you have reported your failure to Batu?”

Alchiq smiled at him, a fierce feral grin. “I didn’t fail. They came out eventually, and I was waiting for them. My jaghun caught them near the Ijil Moron, the big river also known as San- su.”

Chucai sucked on a tooth and shrugged, indicating the geographical subtlety of Alchiq’s story was lost on him.

“The Ijil Moron lies east of Kiev,” Alchiq explained. “And while my men slew all of the women who came from the white citadel in Kiev, the others decimated my men not a week later.”

“Wait-” Chucai’s attention snapped to the older man’s words. “Women? Others?”

Alchiq nodded. “The warriors in the white citadel were all women-they were called skjalddis by the people who survived Batu Khan’s conquest. They left their citadel to travel east, escorting a group of men whom I have fought twice now and barely survived both times. Each time I met this band, they were farther east, closer to the center of the empire.”

Chucai laughed, unable to help himself. “You think they are coming here? To threaten the Khagan?” he asked.

“I do not know what their goal is, but I fear it is to strike at the heart of the empire.”

“How many were there? Fifty?”

“Less than a dozen.”

“Against three hundred of the Imperial Guard? Against the minghan who can be summoned from Karakorum?” Chucai scoffed. “I think you overestimate their chances.”

“Maybe,” Alchiq said. “But how long has it been since the empire has fought a worthy foe? Has anyone since Genghis Khan been in a battle he could not win? Does the Khagan know what it takes to defeat an enemy that will not submit?”

Alchiq had been watching the white-haired prisoner while he spoke, and Chucai’s gaze was drawn to the young prisoner. The youth was slouched against the bars of his cage, his head turned partially away from them-his gaze fixed and unfocused on the slope of a nearby ger. One of his hands flopped out of the cage. He gave all the impression of being dazed and indifferent to anything going around him, and Chucai was struck by the stark difference between this lassitude and the way the youth had stared at everything when he had first seen him outside Karakorum.

Alchiq gave a curt nod, and angling his body away from the cage, signaled Chucai with a finger to his lip and then to his ear. The boy is listening.

“It took me many years to realize you were right, Master Chucai,” Alchiq said. “I was the poison that would have destroyed the empire. But not anymore. I’m the one who is going to help you save it.”

Chucai stared at the white-haired boy with a mixture of wonderment and curiosity. A spy? Was Alchiq suggesting that the boy was an advance scout-of all things-for a party of warriors from the West?

The idea was ludicrous and incredibly daring or… it was a paranoid fantasy concocted by the arkhi-damaged brain of a bitter old soldier.

Either way, Chucai realized, this man is an annoying complication. It was far better for him to stay here, watching the prisoners, than to be whispering these sorts of ideas in the Khagan’s ear. He had enough trouble with Ogedei as it was. He didn’t need the additional headache of the Khagan being spooked by outlandish